Wireless portable electronic devices (also referred to herein as portable electronic devices) are well known and nearly ubiquitous in modern life. In addition to often supporting a wide variety of local and/or native functionality these devices also often transceive various kinds of data via one or more wireless links. Examples of wireless links include but are not limited to Long Term Evolution (LTE)-based radio networks that employ licensed wireless spectrum and 802.11-compatible wireless local area networks (WLAN's) that employ unlicensed wireless spectrum. (As used herein, the expressions “licensed” and “unlicensed” shall be understood to refer to license-based authorization and control as implemented and governed by a given national government(s) within its territory or region via a corresponding agency such as, in the United States, the Federal Communications Commission.)
Some functionality can require substantial use of a given device's wireless communications capabilities. Such substantial use, in turn, can require sending and/or receiving large quantities of data. Unfortunately, many licensed wireless spectrum-based networks charge accordingly and/or limit the amount of data that can be transceived via their networks. It is known in the art to rely instead upon an available network that employs unlicensed wireless spectrum when transceiving large quantities of data to avoid such restrictions/costs. Unfortunately, merely providing such a capability in a portable electronic device as an available option does not necessarily meet all user requirements and/or the needs of all application settings.
For example, to date, integration of unlicensed spectrum into an operator's core network has been done mainly at higher layers providing mainly IP-level interworking between licensed and unlicensed spectrum. Such an approach leads to a number of corresponding problems. Peak throughput per application, for example, is often not improved as a given bearer/APN traffic is still routed via a single access network. Such an approach can also negatively impact the core network nodes in the operator's network, and the network operator may also be required to run a separate Operations Support System (OSS) for the WLAN network and the cellular network and separate authentication mechanisms/infrastructure.
As a more specific example in these regards, LTE and 802.11 operate with different paradigms for traffic scheduling. LTE works on the basis of (synchronous) scheduled transmissions over the air while 802.11 works on the basis of opportunistic (asynchronous) transmission based on channel availability. There is no mechanism to merge these two paradigms and to thereby integrate the 802.11 and LTE access networks at a low level to enable bearer split across these access networks to enable peak throughput improvements per application.
As another specific example in these regards, authentication procedures differ considerably as between LTE and 802.11. Such differences stymie a useful merging of these two data-transport mediums.